About Sam Bat:Sam Bat grew out of careful research and a thorough knowledge of eastern hardwoods. It also developed from a simple question by Bill MacKenzie, then of the Colorado Rockies: "We're just breaking too many bats. Do you think you could come up with an answer to that?" The solution was fairly obvious. But the answer led to a pile of work and a crash course on bats. The reading list ranged from "The Physics of Baseball," "The Rules of Major League Baseball," "219 Patents on Baseball Bats" to "The Trees of Canada, Standard Handbook for Civil Engineers." There was also the search for wood which, for carvers and lovers of wood is never ending.

Living in and near Ottawa was a huge advantage in developing the Sam Bat concept. It's a researcher's dream center: home of the Canadian patent library, two first-rate universities, the Wood Council, the Canadian Forest Research Centre, the National and other extensive Libraries - all in the center of the richest deciduous forest of North America.

However, sifting through the mountains of information - especially reading 219 U.S. patents - was painfully tedious. Perhaps Sam Bat hadn't been invented because no one had ever had the heart to turn one after this task. In fact, simply going by patent law, ash would be the only choice.

Developing the business end was also time-consuming. Then there was the task of translating maple (a much more dense wood than ash) into a workable model with the accepted range of bat lengths and weights. One thing was sure: Sam Bat was determined to come up with a line of bats that would be more than adequate to deal with the needs of major league baseball.

Sam Bat's corporate purpose is to introduce a new wooden baseball bat to Major League Baseball. Since prototype testing in 1996 they realized that they had a bat that was tougher and will last longer than the ash bat traditionally in use. It is their goal to provide the best maple they can buy for use in our Sam Bats.

Sam Bat makes their bats from sap and better Canadian maple, the best grade available. It is kiln dried to a moisture content of 7% - 9%. The specific gravity is 63%. The selection of sugar maple allows them to model their bats extremely close to other wood bats.